Steelers great Jerome Bettis enters Hall of Fame

Both Jerome Bettis and Tim Brown will be inducted by their brothers, while Ron Wolf’s son will introduce the front-office legend.

Junior Seau’s legacy lives on in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Watch it on KARE 11.

Relax. After five years of waiting (and more than a little campaigning), there’s a bust waiting for The Bus, who will have plenty of company when the Class of 2015 officially joins football’s most exclusive fraternity tonight (7, ESPN). “Marshawn Lynch would have to be the guy that you look at and (say) like, ‘Woah!’ Because he refuses to let one person tackle him and that was my philosophy: Somebody’s going to pay….” He wanted nothing more than to make you all proud, and I hope you know that without you he wouldn’t have been the man, the player or the father he was, and for that, I also thank you.

The humbled men in gold jackets entering football immortality were unmistakable.

The night is always special and was captured by Wolf when he opened the speeches by saying, “As my friend (country singer) Kenny Chesney so happily sings, ‘This is our moment, this is our time”.

Brown played in 255 games over 17 seasons with the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ending his career in 2004.

Dick Vermeil was head coach of the Chiefs for five seasons near the end of Shield’s career. Wolf, who spent 23 years working for the Raiders, called owner Al Davis a “remarkable teacher” who gave him a chance to grow from a scout scouring for prospects into one of the most respected team builders of his generation.

“He admitted to me that he didn’t want them to draft me”, Shields said. Some say the fact all of his touchdowns came in the AFL, which was considered a lesser league at the time – and by many football writers today – is a major factor.

“I walked into the league a 22-year-old man with a 16-year-old inside of me screaming for help, and I would not ask for it. I would not ask for that help”.

Jerome Bettis fan Marty Higbee, of Cincinnati, wears a foam Bus as he waits for the induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame of Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, Saturday, August 8, 2015, in Canton, Ohio. It set the stage for Bettis, a beloved figure known as much for his quick feet and easy smile as the massive thighs and lowered shoulders that churned out 13,662 yards. He is now sixth.

Shields was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1993, which was the same year he started his “Will to Succeed” Foundation. He never missed a game, and the only game he didn’t start was the first one of his rookie season in 1993. Not only was he on the field but he excelled, being named to the Pro Bowl 12-straight seasons.

For Shields, the origin of understanding what his platform as an athlete could do for those in his community went back to high school, where he remembered a speech given by former NFL player Hollywood Henderson to his team. The 12-time Pro Bowler’s induction, however, proved bittersweet, coming more than three years after he took his own life.

Shields played all 224 games of his 14-season career with the Kansas City Chiefs. Like Shields, he was selected to play in 12 Pro Bowls, and totaled 56.5 sacks. He would add just one more in 1996, a season in which he would only play in five games. “That’s why, at this point in my career, I don’t know a lot of guys names that I went against, because I took that out of my game”. He was named NFL Executive of the Year six times by The Sporting News.

Shields had two big supporters in the evaluation process: general manager Carl Peterson and vice-president of player personnel Lynn Stiles.

All-purpose stats like those normally make someone a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, but Canton has eluded Cappelletti every time.